


Orthros Shine

by DoreyG



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Victorious
Genre: Apocalypse, Community: hc_bingo, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Fusion, Implied threesomes, Jade and Tori have a special bond, Jaeger Pilots, Kaiju, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Major Character Death, Multi, This got very dark very quickly, mentions of minor character death, radiation poisoning, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t call it an apocalypse.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orthros Shine

“You can’t call it an apocalypse.”

“Why not?” She asks in an annoyed way, glancing up from her phone to squint at Jade through her hair. It’s been a long day, and she feels bruised pretty much all over. She has little patience for Jade being… Well, _Jade_ , “it is an apocalypse. Giant monsters bursting up out of the sea, sounds a lot like an apocalypse to me.”

“No,” but Jade, unfortunately, has a lot of patience for being herself. Simply swings her legs where she’s perched in her bunk and gives a sly smile, a smile that clearly speaks of a desire to cause as much mischief as humanly possible, “because, you see, the world is still here. And humanity is still struggling on – step by terribly annoying step.”

“Okay,” she hates that smile – or, at the very least, can usually come reasonably close to hating that smile. Full loathing is complicated now, has been ever since the first Kaiju crawled out of the sea and started destroying coastal towns, “but humanity is only barely struggling on.”

“Still counts.”

“And as for the world-!”

“Still. _Counts_ ,” she sometimes wishes that she _could_ hate that smile, but the wishing never lasts for long. She appreciates it, really, which is the terrifying thing. She appreciates _Jade_ , which is somehow even more terrifying, “face it, Vega. If you can type the word apocalypse it is most definitely not going on.”

“…Is too,” she can put aside that terror to be childish, though. Which is at least something. Her connection with Jade hasn’t robbed her of all her traits, she can take refuge in that.

“Is not.”

“Is too!”

“Is not, little golden girl,” it’s a paltry refuge, as Jade gives a hungry grin and leaps neatly down to the ground, but she’ll take what she can get – will cross her legs neatly in her chair and… Sit her ground as the woman ambles over, Kaiju-purple streaks glinting just slightly in the low light, “because, you see, we’re still living. We’re still breathing and talking and fighting as hard as we possibly can. In a true apocalypse none of that would be happening. In a true apocalypse _we’d_ be the only ones left, struggling across the barren land and waiting for the inevitable end.”

…Point.

She refuses to give it, sets her mouth into a stubborn line instead and firmly clicks send upon her phone. She has no idea why The Slap is still working after everything, but she’s glad. It’s her main venue of proving her own points, these days, “there are giant monsters crawling out of the sea, more and more every day.”

“You’ve already said that,” Jade gives another lazy grin, props a swaying hip right besides her head, “and I’ve already countered it. If you want more evidence, little golden girl, I’d suggest looking at the figures for how many of them we’ve taken down.”

“And how many of them have taken others down around us,” she mutters darkly, and places her phone on the side. Maybe Andre will text her soon, and take her away from this rather annoying conversation. They haven’t seen each other in person for a while, but they always keep in some form of contact. Maybe she’ll even get to visit him one day, if the attacks ever ease off, “our homes were entirely destroyed.”

“They weren’t that nice anyway.”

“ _Jade_!”

“What?” The laugh she receives for that is _infuriating_ , she rolls her eyes and grits her teeth and tries to count to ten like the normal person she totally is in most ways, “I far prefer our current quarters. They’re more homely… _Cosier_ , if you will.”

And, yes, Jade does have a point. Because, indeed, their quarters have become a new home over the past few years. And, to her faint worry, she can’t really imagine living anywhere else. _And_ , to her surprising pleasure, they really are quite cosy after they started sleeping in the same bunk a couple of years back…

_But_.

“We’ve lost people, Jade,” she snaps, and watches her phone for that distraction from Andre. Or Robbie, as busy as he is with everything. Or even… Well, Sikowitz disappeared long ago. But absent is not dead, and she’s determined to maintain hope for as long as she possibly can, “far too many people, in far too short a period of time.”

And… Well, even Jade sobers at that reminder. Her hips stop swaying, her expression grows a little flatter. She stares at nothing for a long few moments before she sighs, slumps down the wall and shakes her hair back, “your point?”

“If you can’t call losing the people you love an apocalypse,” she continues steadily, determined to hammer the point home no matter how much it hurts – no matter how angrily it burns in her gut or how violently it aches in her head, no matter how brutally it chokes her throat or how sneakily it grasps her heart, “then what can you call it?”

“I-“

She waits, silent and determined and painful.

“…You win, Vega.”

Odd, how that win feels absolutely nothing like a victory.

Sikowitz is absent, but hopefully not dead. The true losses are far worse than that. The first Kaiju attack happened when they were at school, enjoying a perfectly ordinary day of sniping and singing and learning how to act. By the time they realized what was going on it had already taken down a great deal of the city, and took down even more when felled by an air strike. They had been hustled into a refugee camp almost immediately – and then, a few days later, into a morgue. Jade’s father had looked angry in death, wrathful and with palely clenched fists. Her parents, or what was left of them, had only looked peaceful.

Things, predictably, had got worse from there. Their main group had still been alive, at the beginning, but the Kaiju were still coming and they were still so very defenceless. The next one had struck about half a year later, when they’d slowly been starting to rebuild. They got a warning, but that hardly made any difference. The city was devastated again, even more people lost their lives. And as for Trina, sneaking out after curfew to meet a boy that she liked…

Well, she didn’t like to think about it.

Just as she didn’t like to think about Cat. Poor Cat, with her bright red hair and bubbly personality. Poor Cat, who had proved drift compatible with Robbie and fully willing to attempt to save lives. Poor Cat, who had been so very successful for a while until she’d started getting dizzy and weak and losing her hair as they’d all stared on in dismay…

“Vega,” all stared on in dismay until the very end, as it’d turned out. She came back to herself to find Jade’s fingers hovering in front of her face, snapping determinedly as if actually concerned about her welfare, “ _Tori_. Snap out of it before I slap you. I’m not supposed to do that anymore, Pentecost might start _lecturing_ me again.”

…Except she _was_ actually concerned, wasn’t she? After everything they’d lost, after all that they’d seen inside each other’s heads while battling the greatest monsters that humanity had ever faced. She managed a small nod, sat weakly back in her chair as Jade sank slowly down in front of her, “and so he should. It might hurt our-“

“Deep and profound connection, I _know_ ,” Jade sighs, rolls her eyes. There’s still a smirk there, but only if you know how to see it. It still startles her a little, that she knows and understands and can see it whenever she pleases, “honestly, it _would_ be my luck to be drift compatible with you. An idiot who actually believes that this is an apocalypse.”

“ _Jade_...”

“And not just an event relatively close to it,” it’s always somewhat of a relief when Jade’s smirk fully returns to her face, when she eases again as if prepared to tease. They are both still a little uncertain of this connection, of how close they have truly become. She doesn’t think that that’ll ever change, really, “there are differences.”

“... _Subtle_ differences.”

“But important differences,” and neither does Jade, she knows that well after the drift and all the nights of whispered words into soft flesh. It’s a good thing that they’ve both decided that the only way to survive is to get on with it, or else they would’ve fallen apart long ago, “I’m sure _Beck_ would agree with me, if-“

“He was here,” she finishes wearily, also surprised to find that they haven’t fallen apart. Although not that surprised, to tell the truth. She’s always known of her strange sort of bond with Jade, and has always known of how strong it was even before everything. Fire had only strengthened them further, made them grow into something formidable. It’s strange and terrifying upon occasion, but that’s just the way it is, “but he’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

…They’re not going to fall apart.

It’s more strange and terrifying to the Kaiju, after all. And the unfortunate humans that are stupid enough to get in the way of Jade.

“He’ll be here soon,” Jade corrects her lazily, with a certain flash in her eyes that shows she’s just been thinking exactly the same thoughts. It’s the good kind of scary, how their minds work perfectly together now, “he texted me just last night. He’s flying down to talk with Pentecost tonight, and will deal with us afterwards.”

“Deal with us,” she repeats wryly, well aware of what that means. Beck understands the strange and terrifying, but also understands the good kind of scary. She’s glad that he’s still alive, even if the odd bond thrumming between the three of them tends to cause confusion to pretty much everybody on the outside, “but he’s not here _yet_ , and so still can’t support you. You’ll have forgotten by the time he does arrive.”

“I have an excellent memory, that’s extremely unlikely,” Jade sneers at her for a few moments, and then allows her expression to swiftly fall back to a smirk. It’d give her whiplash, if she hadn’t been inside Jade’s head and so a little used to riding the wild waves of her emotion, “unless that was a promise…”

Used to riding them, and used to at least _trying_ to manipulate them. She grins a little herself, pleased to get away from the darkness. Tucks a lock of Jade’s Kaiju-purple hair behind her ear before leaning in for a soft peck against her forehead, “it might’ve been.”

…She isn’t expecting Jade to look contemplative when she leans back, but it’s hardly a bad sort of shock. She doesn’t scream, she doesn’t yell – she only arches an eyebrow and waits her out. And waits, and waits, and-

“It would be my luck to be drift compatible with you,” the waits were less long, now. She smiles a little, as Jade shakes her hair free and tilts her head just slightly, “but I don’t mean that in a bad way, oddly enough. It’s weird, but… You don’t want any declarations of love, do you? Because I was bad enough with saying them to Beck, let alone _you_.”

“I’d be a bit weirded out if you did,” she grins, and can’t resist laying a peck against Jade’s nose – she wrinkles her face at it and gives a tiny scowl, but she’s used to that by now “…Do you want to know something?”

“What?”

“It’s just my luck to be drift compatible with you, too,” very used to it. Just as she was used to the rolling of Jade’s eyes, and the slight baring of her teeth, and the way her hair shines in the light and the way she sometimes snores and the way she looks in the midst of pleasure and a thousand other things that only came from being inside somebody so deep that you could never drag yourself all the way out, “and do you want to know something else?”

“ _What_?”

“This is totally an apocalypse.”

And Jade _snarls_. And she laughs, and grins, and drags the other woman up and in. They can, and will, argue more about the subject later. For now she’s more interested in what came after the apocalypse, and the slide of soft flesh and a mind entirely open to her and _only_ her forevermore.

…It’s still _totally_ an apocalypse, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Apocalypse square on my HC_Bingo card. A crossover/fusion between Victorious and Pacific Rim, because I got the idea for Jade and Tori as Jaeger pilots and decided to sprint with it. The title is meant to be a reference to what their Jaeger is called, except... I am slightly faily and didn't actually get that into the fic.
> 
> This was also meant to be a lot lighter than it turned out, I swear! It just... Ended up fairly dark instead. Oops.


End file.
